The material of this object.

Modifying material will change the material for this object only.

If the material is used by any other renderers, this will clone the shared material and start using it from now on. Important note: This function automatically instantiates the materials and makes them unique to this renderer. It is your responsibility to destroy the materials when the game object is being destroyed. Resources.UnloadUnusedAssets also destroys the materials but it is usually only called when loading a new level.

	function Awake ()
	{
		// Set main color to red
		renderer.material.color = Color.red;
	}
	function OnDestroy ()
	{
		DestroyImmediate(renderer.material);
	}

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class Example : MonoBehaviour {
    void Awake() {
        renderer.material.color = Color.red;
    }
    void OnDestroy() {
        DestroyImmediate(renderer.material);
    }
}

import UnityEngine
import System.Collections

public class Example(MonoBehaviour):

	def Awake() as void:
		renderer.material.color = Color.red

	def OnDestroy() as void:
		DestroyImmediate(renderer.material)

Another example:

	// Change renderer's material each changeInterval
	// seconds from the material array defined in the inspector.
	var materials : Material[];
	var changeInterval = 0.33;
	function Update () {
		if (materials.Length == 0) // do nothing if no materials
			return;
		// we want this material index now
		var index : int = Time.time / changeInterval;
		// take a modulo with materials count so that animation repeats
		index = index % materials.Length;
		// assign it to the renderer
		renderer.sharedMaterial = materials[index];
	}

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class Example : MonoBehaviour {
    public Material[] materials;
    public float changeInterval = 0.33F;
    void Update() {
        if (materials.Length == 0)
            return;
        
        int index = Time.time / changeInterval;
        index = index % materials.Length;
        renderer.sharedMaterial = materials[index];
    }
}

import UnityEngine
import System.Collections

public class Example(MonoBehaviour):

	public materials as (Material)

	public changeInterval as float = 0.33F

	def Update() as void:
		if materials.Length == 0:
			return
		index as int = (Time.time / changeInterval)
		index = (index % materials.Length)
		renderer.sharedMaterial = materials[index]